Patient narratives of hope in stem cell technologies: Trust in biomedicine and the body’s natural ability to heal itself

Abstract

The scholarship on patient hope in biomedical technologies describes two narratives of hope: the biomedical and the individual. The biomedical narrative represents patients’ beliefs that the institution of science will eventually produce treatment for their disease, whereas the individual narrative represents patients’ beliefs that they can alter their prognosis through affective and behavioral modifications. The distinct analytical categories of “biomedical” and “individual,” however, fail to account for the fact that patient hope has been found to be much more complex. Building upon extant literature, we contribute to the understanding of the complexity of patient hope in biomedical technologies by examining a case that highlights interdependencies between the biomedical and individual narratives: hope in stem cell technologies (SCTs). We draw upon interviews with patients with Parkinson’s Disease, and find two narratives of hope: a biomedical narrative, as captured above, and an additional hybrid narrative, which we call a nature narrative. The nature narrative reflects patients’ beliefs that scientists will eventually create SCTs that will allow their individual body to naturally heal itself, which combines a biomedical and an individual narrative.

‘A platform for goodness, not for badness’: The heuristics of hope in patients' evaluations of online health information

“…These narratives change over time as patients refashion their identities through telling stories, and typically comprise expressions of hope for promising treatments or cures (e.g. DePalma, et al, 2021;Soundy, et al, 2011). These hopes are sustained and circulate in online communities and are exploited by providers who use the internet to advertise clinically unproven treatments (Authors).…”